Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am joined today by Naomi Oreskes. She is a professor of the history of science at Harvard

University, and I am also joined by Eric M. Conway. He's a historian at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

They are the authors of, first, the bestselling book, Merchants of Doubt,

how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming, but most recently,

the big myth, how American business taught us to loathe government and love the free market.

So thank you both for joining us today.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for having us.

So let's start with what's the big myth?

The big myth is what Ronald Reagan called the magic of the marketplace.

It's the idea that, first of all, there even is such a thing as the free market,

the idea that markets somehow stand apart from society and governance.

It's the idea that the market has wisdom, that it's efficient, that it's intelligent,

that it has almost godlike powers.

And so therefore, we should have faith in the wisdom of the marketplace or the invisible hand.

And also, and crucially, the argument that was made in the 20th century

that capitalism and freedom are indivisible,

that they go hand in hand, and therefore,

if you compromise economic freedom,

if you encourage government action in the marketplace,

you're threatening political and social freedom.

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